Andrew Strauss won the toss and elected to bat first in overcast conditions in the 1st Test of the series. Guess who are the hosts? Pakistan. Straussy's decision could prove to be right or wrong depending on a lot of things. Given the conditions, England's awesome bowling attack, Pakistan's fragile batting order, bowling first seemed like the obvious option. The only reason why batting first could prove to be right is if the pitch deteriorates with time. In the last Test played here, England scored 364, with Kevin Pietersen scoring a ton, Ambrose 67, Broad 64 on his home ground. Anderson finished with 7 for 43 as New Zealand were all out for a meagre 123! Ryan Sidebottom grabbed 6 wickets as New Zealand were bowled out for 232 and England won by an innings and 9 runs. What a Test to remember for England's top swing bowlers! I enjoyed those Tests against New Zealand so much, played at home and away. Teams batting first have won 15 Tests and teams batting second have won 17 Tests at this ground, not much difference there. There have been 7 inning defeats, 5 by teams by batting first and 2 by teams batting second.
Coming back to the on-going match, Cook went early, his place is in doubt, needs to score big to stay in the team. With Morgan flourishing, Belly may come back to play the Ashes and take Cook's place. And if England decides to go for 5 bowlers in Australia, which they should, then Trott and Cook both will be dropped. England were under pressure when Collingwood came out to bat with 118/4. Paul Collingwood and Eoin Morgan shared a partnership of 219 runs to get England out of trouble. Aamer got the first 3 batsmen. This Test saw the comeback of the good for nothing referral system, which may not help in good umpiring decisions but surely brings a lot of drama. You'll see lots of times when the fielding side would ponder hard about whether they should refer or not. When it's close, the benefit goes to the umpire. Then what's the point? When it's clearly out or not out, the umpire on the field can tell the right thing anyway. This just means that the referral system may only help in avoiding the obvious errors. "May" because hawk-eye is not always right and snicko is not even used.